You Can Stop Now, Doctor
by headwonk
Summary: Things sometimes get rough for the Doctor and they need a reminder of who they are. This time, Twelve arrives in time to give his future self a stern talking to. It's a shame she won't listen to him.


**You Can Stop Now, Doctor**

**A/N: This got kind OOC in some places, for that I apologise, but I hope you enjoy anyway. **

**One-shot.**

"Graham!" The Doctor, Ryan, and Yaz exclaim simultaneously. They each rub over to the older man as he hits the floor, a hand pressed to his side where the red-skinned alien has just shot him. Graham groans in pain and presses against the wound tighter, blood wetting his fingers and dyeing them the same colour as the alien who'd shot him.

The Doctor's sonic screwdriver is immediately pulled out and scanning him all over, to which he flinches away from the light when it reaches his face.

"Graham, can you hear me?" She asks him desperately, lightly tapping his face.

"Yeah," he gasps out, unable to say anything more.

"You're gonna be fine. I promise," the Doctor then tells him, a hand on his shoulder for comfort. Graham nods his head.

Removing her hand, the Doctor asks Ryan and Yaz to keep Graham conscious.

"You didn't have to do that," the Doctor grits out to the alien who had hurt Graham.

"Yes, I did," the alien retorts, hissing the 's'. "You need to learn not to interfere in other people's affairs."

"If I hadn't, millions of people would have died at your hands!" The Doctor yells, her temper flaring.

"And now your friend is dying instead," the alien says, "because of you."

There's a long, drawn out moment of silence as the Doctor simply stares at the alien in front of her. The alien who had shot Graham. He looks back, undeterred by the anger in her expression and eyes.

The Doctor takes a deep breath.

"You're right," she admits, but it's not the end, "but no one else has to die at your hands. Not if I have anything to say about it."

She adjusts the setting on her sonic, not taking her eyes off of the alien while said alien raises a brow.

"What are you going to do?" He chuckles. "Reverse my polarity?"

"Even better," the Doctor says, aiming the screwdriver at him, "I'm going to do this."

With a press of the button, the red-skinned alien falls to his knees with a thud and clutches his ears, mouth falling open in a silent scream. A few pained moans fall past his lips, but nothing else gets past the noise of the sonic screwdriver.

"Doctor, what are you doin'?" Ryan quickly demands, eyes wide and shocked.

"Stop it, Doctor!" Yaz adds, getting up but not approaching the Doctor.

Neither of them receive a reply from their friend as she stares down the alien on his knees by her hand. The alien's eyes have fallen shut as he hunches in on himself and groans in pain.

"Do you feel that?" The Doctor addresses the alien.

The alien chokes out a moan and the Doctor scoffs.

"Good."

"Doc, have you lost your mind?" Graham manages from where he's still lay on the floor, watching the scene unfold.

"No," she whirls around to look at Graham, then turns away again when she can't face the sight of blood staining his jumper, "I'm just _sick_ _and tired_ of losing the people I care about."

"Well, you ain't lost me, have ya?" Graham points out. "I'm still here."

"I could have lost you, though," the Doctor snaps and presses the button even harder, "but I won't! I won't lose any of you. Not to people like him, anyway."

"Doctor, stop this, you're better than he is," Ryan speaks up, desperate now at the sight of the alien in a fetal position on the floor. "This isn't you!"

"Isn't it?" The Doctor asks quietly. "I've lived a long time. I'm over two thousand years old and I've done some terrible things. You wouldn't want to know me if you knew even half of the stuff I've done."

"That's not true," Yaz says, "you're our mate and whatever you've done, it's all in the past. You've shown us so many _amazing _things; things I didn't even know were possible. Things outside of our boring lives on Earth. And you help people! Do you know how many people got to live on because of you? Because you saved them?"

There's a pause in the conversation as the Doctor apparently decides what to say to Yaz.

"I'm not a hero," she settles on.

"I didn't say you were," Yaz quietly responds, "I just... Please stop, Doctor."

The Doctor doesn't. She ignores Yaz's plea to stop what she's doing and instead strides forward to the alien in the floor, still aiming her sonic at him. He whimpers when the Doctor stops in front of him, her boots in his line of vision.

"P-please," the alien begs, reaching forward for her boot.

The Doctor moves it out of his reach and kneels down in front of him, putting her sonic under his chin and lifting his head so he can look at her.

"Why should I stop when there are people out there suffering because of you? When my friend is over there with a bullet in him _because __of you_?" The Doctor questions.

The alien shivers and stutters the start of his reply, but before his can form a coherent sentence, a familiar, hopeful, wheezing, groaning sound fills the air. Everyone stops and looks over in the direction the sound is coming from, all but the Doctor.

"There's no point coming here trying to stop me, Old Girl," the Doctor says, still facing the cowering man on the floor.

"'Old Girl'?" An old, Scottish voice repeats.

The Doctor tenses, her eyes flickering away from the man for the briefest of seconds before she frowns and looks back at him.

"You should be here, the para-" the Doctor starts.

"The paradoxes, yes," the past Doctor interrupts her, approaching with caution, "but I believe this," he gestures to the scene in front of him, "is reason enough to forget that rule for a moment."

"You shouldn't be here," the Doctor repeats.

"Well, if you're gonna keep saying that, I'll just get back in my box and leave," the past Doctor says and comes around to face the future Doctor.

She looks up and can't help but stare for a moment.

"You're still..." she begins.

"Yes, I am," he adjusts the shades on his eyes.

"Then why are you here? Shouldn't you be back at the university guarding the Vault, not going off on adventures on your own when you're blind?" The Thirteenth Doctor snaps, quickly turning back to the alien.

"I got a message," the Twelfth Doctor says.

"From who?"

"I don't know," Twelve admits.

"What did it say?" Thirteen slowly asks, unsure if she wants to know.

"It said that the Doctor was losing hope, that she needed someone to remind her to be kind."

"Don't do that," Thirteen grits out.

"Do what?"

"Quote me back to myself."

"I'm not quoting anything," Twelve says.

Thirteen looks at him and sighs, "you're right. Spoilers."

"I see."

"Was that some poor attempt at humour?"

"I don't know what you mean," Twelve grins, "now come on, Doctor. You don't really want to do this."

"You don't know what I want, you're not me."

"Not yet, I'm not. But I assume I will be soon, and I know that _I _don't want this. So, put your silly little toy down and let him go. Your friend is over there bleeding out and if you don't stop this now, you're going to lose him," Twelve reminds her.

Thirteen shakes her head but lowers the sonic anyway at the reminder of Graham currently losing blood.

"That's why I'm doing this," she admits to Twelve, "I'm just... sick and tired of losing the people we care about... I don't know what I'd do without them."

Twelve sighed and turned to the alien on the floor.

"Go, now. And don't return," he orders.

The alien immediately and quickly nods his head, scrambling up from the floor. He scurries out of the room through the automatic doors which close behind him.

Turning to Thirteen, Twelve reaches forward and grapples for the sonic in her hand. He slowly takes it from her hands and she lets him.

"Come on, into my TARDIS," he tells Thirteen and her friends.

With confusion, Thirteen's fam nod their head, and Yaz and Ryan make a team effort to lift Graham and carry him into the TARDIS.

As soon as they get inside, the Twelfth Doctor closes the door behind them and points them towards a door off to the left that isn't in his future TARDIS.

"Med bay," he explains to the quizzical looks.

"Oh," Ryan says, "thanks, mate."

"You're welcome... mate," Twelve replies with a raised eyebrow.

In a joint effort, Yaz and Ryan carry Graham out of the more futuristic console room through into the med bay. The door slides closed behind them and the Twelfth Doctor nods when it disappears from view. He sends a silent thanks to the Old Girl and turns to Thirteen who is leaning her hands on the console.

A sniffle catches his attention but he pretends not to have heard it as he deliberately avoids looking at her as she discreetly wipes what he thinks is a tear away from her cheek.

"Graham got shot," Thirteen initiates the conversation first which is a relief for Twelve as he isn't sure what to say anyway. "I could have lost him."

"I know," Twelve says when she doesn't continue as he thought she would do.

"They helped me out when we met. Everything was so hectic at first, but they were there even though they didn't know me," Thirteen continues, probably spoiling more of the future than she should be but Twelve doesn't stop her. She won't spoil anything too important anyway. He thinks. "I don't know what I would do without them."

"That's no reason to torture an unarmed man," Twelve cautiously inputs, finally bringing up what he'd wanted to say in the first place.

Thirteen whirls around and rounds on him. There's a significant height difference between him and his future, but he has to admit that she's no less intimidating than he is now with his angry eyebrows.

"And if I hadn't? Millions would have died at his hands! Not just Graham," Thirteen hisses at him.

"And that justifies your decision then, does it? Torture one man so millions more won't die a pointless death?" Twelve backfires. "That's not how we work and you know it. We always find a different way. A way where no one will get hurt."

"Not this time," Thirteen says after a slight hesitation. Twelve frowns. "This time, I make the rules and nothing can stop me."

Twelve's frown turns into a scowl and he steps back from her.

"I don't know who you are, but you are not me," he tells her with disgust, "as soon as your friend is healed, I want you gone."


End file.
